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If school hasn’t started for you yet, it will be soon. You may be looking forward to having your child in school all day, or you may be dreading the start of the school year because of the fights at and with the school.
In most cases, the younger the child, the more enabling the teacher can be. Many teachers don’t want a child to “fail” while they’re young. There is fear it will damage a child’s self esteem. In my experience and opinion, it is much more damaging to a child to fail in high school than in first grade.
I have talked to many parents who deal with the same issue. Their child “forgets” to do the homework, leaves it on the bus, loses it in the locker or whatever, and the child is given numerous chances to redo the work and receives full credit. How is this helpful to our kids? Most of our kids will take full advantage of this and never do the work to begin with or tell the parents that there was no homework, then do the work half heartedly at the last minute.
Another area in which this harms a child is that the teachers don’t get an accurate assessment of the child’s work and intelligence. If the child is rushing to do the work at the last minute are they doing the best job possible? Not in the kids I have worked with. This can make the child appear far less intelligent than what is really going on. I know so many parents who fight to convince the teacher how intelligent their child is but the child puts forth minimum effort in school and convinces the teacher that the child is not capable of doing the work.
The other thing that happens is that parents get pulled into a power struggle with their child over homework. Parents have actually received notes home chiding them for their child not having the homework done. It is not the parents’ responsibility, it is the child’s. Family time is for working on becoming a family. If a child is building up a big power struggle over homework, it is in everyone’s best interest for the parents to step back and not be pulled into it. Our kids need to be part of a family more than they need an “A” on a spelling test.
Many teachers and school districts assume that all children have access to computers and internet. There are children that you don’t want to have internet access. Sammy downloaded porn while he was working on our computer with me sitting at a separate desk right next to him. He didn’t realize what I could see. He even got past the filters on the school computers. For reasons like this, many parents really limit the amount of time their kids have on the computer, and rightfully so. However, many teachers just assume that the parents will allow their child to use these resources.
There are plenty of good teachers out there, but the ones who don’t get it or don’t want to get it can make life miserable for so many families. Kids need to learn while the price is small and sometimes all they are learning is manipulation.
Do the words “No Child Left Behind” ring a bell? Teachers not only do not want children to fail, they CANNOT allow children to fail. They must do whatever it takes for the child to pass. A child who is given a failing grade WILL be passed in summer school and the teacher will be in danger of losing her/his job. If you doubt this — ask a teacher how many students they retained last year? If any, how many went to summer school and were promoted on to the next grade?
Too many failing students mean a failing school. A failing school three years in a row results in the faculty and staff being dismissed or transferred. The stakes may seem “small” for a resistant six-year-old but they are very “big” for his teacher.
No child left behind is an absolute joke. It has created so many problems.
Here’s an example of what I am talking about. When my son was in his 1st RTC (all his RTCs have had school on site) they were so worried about his self-esteem that they gave him a “C” when he got a 25% on his paper. I’m sorry, that’s failing. He had As and Bs in all his classes, but the level of work they were giving him was ludicrous and when you can’t give a child an F who has truly earned it, then the whole system is screwed up. I repeatedly asked the teachers for his work and I got one packet with about 8 sheets in it for the entire 9 months that he was there.
I WANT my child held accountable. All this taught him was that he didn’t have to do any work and he’d still get by. When he went back to public school he failed 3 out of 4 semesters. How did this help him?
This problem stems back long before No child left behind.
Kelly: Before NCLB it was “social promotion”. The state where I worked had a regulation that a child could be retained ONE time in Elementary school and ONE time in Middle School.
So, a child who repeated Kdgn could NOT be held back again until he/she reached 6th grade. It did not matter if the child did nothing because he could not, or did nothing because he chose not — he was moved on up. Yes, the problem did start long before NCLB but only recently were teachers and administrators threatened with loss of jobs (insurance, retirement, Soc. Sec., etc) if all the kids don’t pass. I retired three years ago and I saw good teachers frustrated because they could not give students what they deserved.
Thank you for your input. This does such a disservice to children, especially kids like ours. We’re now passing kids that have no business passing. I know mine sure doesn’t. What a sad society.